I’ve never seen the full Twilight movies, but I saw Bella’s Carolina Herrera wedding dress on a Celebrity news show and was really intrigued. I decided to make a version of it for American Girl Doll.

I used poly-silk shantung in off-white for the dress. I made the pattern up by myself, which wasn’t too hard because I’ve sewn about a THOUSAND princess-seam dresses in my time, and I understand how the pieces work together. (Not necessarily the case for most of my “pattern drafting”, haha.) The back of the dress was the most fun part to put together. I cut a semi-circle out of each of the back pieces, serged the edges, fray-checked them, and sewed a layer of organza underneath. Then, I sewed the beaded lace pieces on top of the raw hole edges.
On the bodice, I stitched down narrow ribbon to mimick the bust seams on the real dress.
I sewed some Venice lace on the bottom of the sleeves. The lace was originally BRIGHT white, but I lightly over-dyed it with grey and yellow RIT dye, which made it the perfect color.
I used flat-back scrapbooking pearls for the “buttons” on the back of the dress and the sleeves. This was way quicker than sewing on pearl beads, and they lay flat instead of sticking up funny.
The back closes with snaps. I used white bias tape to finished the really curved hem.

For the veil, I gathered some off-white tulle and sandwiched it between a hair barrette and a silver metal filigree with hot glue.

I think it turned out great, and I love looking at the the back of the dress. It’s just so delicate and pretty.